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Jake

Idle Thumbs 144: Gimme Some More

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Majora's Mask is my favorite game ever and is super rad and yes the Thumbs should play it. A couple years ago I wrote about my favorite moment here: http://www.telebunny.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/14-TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask

 

Also I think Ocarina is super good, but most of the 3D Zeldas after it were better, mostly because it broke so much ground that was built upon afterwards.

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You can't beat an omnimover for capacity. Unless you're Pirates of the Caribbean. But also, short lines for Astro Blasters are a relatively recent development that came about with the removal of the fastpass system. Before that, you could easily wait 30-45 minutes for it.

 

For years, I've been kicking around the idea of writing up a very simple theme park Monte Carlo simulation to see whether or not adding in the Fastpass system lead to shorter wait times overall for park guests. Like, I think that when you utilize Fastpasses over the course of your Disneyland trip, you probably save time, but you can only use a finite number of Fastpasses on a given day because of the system they have in place that locks you out for a given amount of time. The standby line for a given ride then balloons out as they wait for Fastpass holders to pass through. I wonder what happens to the distribution of wait times when you add in a Fastpass.

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The Rolly Crump book about Disneyland is this:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Kind-Cute-Story-Rolly-Crump/dp/098547064X

 

I haven't actually read it, I've only listened to some recordings of outtakes from the interviews they did to write the book.  The guy is super charming.

 

Also recommended is Roller Coasters, Flumes, and Flying Saucers. It's actually about the guys at Arrow who built a lot of systems for Disney (they invented modern roller coaster track and bogies for the Matterhorn, for example), and it's an interesting read. Seems ot be out of print, but Amazon has it for the Kindle at least: http://www.amazon.com/Roller-Coasters-Flumes-Flying-Saucers-ebook/dp/B007AVQASS/?tag=idlthu-20

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For years, I've been kicking around the idea of writing up a very simple theme park Monte Carlo simulation to see whether or not adding in the Fastpass system lead to shorter wait times overall for park guests. Like, I think that when you utilize Fastpasses over the course of your Disneyland trip, you probably save time, but you can only use a finite number of Fastpasses on a given day because of the system they have in place that locks you out for a given amount of time. The standby line for a given ride then balloons out as they wait for Fastpass holders to pass through. I wonder what happens to the distribution of wait times when you add in a Fastpass.

 

Oops, you've stumbled into my favorite thing to rant about! Though I actually pretty much agree with you. Fastpass only represents a solution to a problem that it causes. Like you said, because the standby line has to be held up to favor the fastpass queue, the standby wait times balloon massively, depending on the fastpass/standby mix the attraction is running. Often standby lines are 2x (or more) the original wait time before fastpass. Which of course makes fastpass seem like a must-have, because who wants to wait that long in line? A good example case is Pirates of the Caribbean, which initially offered Fastpass, but then saw it taken out again a few years later. With Fastpass, the standby wait times could often reach 90 minutes in the summertime, which is inexcusable for an attraction that can load over 3200 guests per hour. Once removed, the wait time dropped back to the original 20-30 minutes.

 

Not to mention other side effects. Look at Indiana Jones, an attraction built before fastpass, but now equipped with it. It has a very long, elaborately themed, and air-conditioned indoor queue. But with fastpass, there's no way for them to actually run a queue inside that space, because they need to maintain two seperate queues and it doesn't have the space for that. So the standby queue is stuck in what was originally the overflow queue outside, with the merge point at the temple entrance. Then everyone, fastpass and standby alike, walks or runs through the nice themed queue, making it the best themed hallway in existence, I suspect.

 

I'm actually super happy that Toy Story opened without fastpass. It's running a 45 minute wait most days without, and I encourage you to compare that with the one in Florida, which has fastpass and runs a 2+ hour standby queue for an identical ride system.

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Of course 20 minutes after hearing Nick talk about Astro Blaster, my friend posts on Facebook about how she maxed out the score on the ride before even leaving the first room.

 

Maybe it IS a baby game

 

Or Disney employees know all the secret tips and tricks

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It sounds like it comes down to an issue of expectations. I haven't played DA:O so I can't say for sure why that worked, and why this didn't, but I also suspect there wasn't any ambiguity when someone bought that game that they were buying a RPG, and that comes with a set of expectations about the content of the game. <snip>

I would argue that there was zero ambiguity about what Banner Saga was, but I'd be disproven by the fact that Chris somehow managed to not know about what the game was, so eh. I suspect DA:O worked for them not because it does anything inherently better than Banner Saga, but instead because of the time period it came out in. It had a pause-n-play mechanic that hadn't been seen in a while, and the gameplay was whatever the user chose it to be - for instance, I play it as a pseudo turn-based strategy game in which I pause every 5 seconds or so to issue another order. The main chunk of the lore is also hidden away in the Codex. But around that time, there were very few turn or pause-n-play based strategy games, and DA:O filled that niche for some people. 4-6 years later and there have been tons and tons of great tactical strategy games, and ones that aren't focused in genre fiction (something I didn't quite realize until now was a thing the Thumbs seem to rather dislike - it explains a lot about what they tend to like, though, and why I so often disagree with them). Had DA:O released this year, I suspect it would be met with similar feelings from the Thumbs to what Banner Saga raised.

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Oops, you've stumbled into my favorite thing to rant about! (etc)

 

I could probably discuss this issue for as long as you could. I'm currently wondering about the effectiveness of the recent rule change that locks you into the exact time specified on the Fastpass, rather than allowing you to go at any time during or after the window. I can only assume that only hurts people with Fastpasses who can't make their window, or forget, which may lengthen the lines for the stand-by folks. Fastpass is a stupid system overall because it's not explained well, and it mostly benefits those who go to Fastpass kiosks early. If you're not as informed about Disneyland when you go, it's probably pretty confusing. I've also seen special ticket packages which include Fastpasses, but maybe I'm imagining that.

 

And I'm glad someone else appreciates how stupid the Indiana Jones setup is, wherein everyone waits in a boring portion of the ride, and then runs past an incredible feat of imagineering (there are so, so many things to look at on the way into the ride. Kids these days probably don't even know that the Maran language scattered throughout is just english in a weird, simple typography!) on the way to wait in the final portion of the queue. It's absurd! I think perhaps that Disney is fine with the setup because it means that people can be watched as they queue in order to prevent things like vandalism. The same thing is true with the re-opened Star Tours, which forces the guests to wait in that tiny boring overflow room, while you rush past one hundred million Star Wars themed jokes in the queue.

 

It could be worse, since Magic Mountain in Ventura has a similar system (with way worse line queues) but you have to pay for the passes.

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Also, fun fact, cast members will frequently 'recycle' fastpasses back out to guests. Basically, snag a handful of them while working the merge and then give them back to other guests to use a second time. In theory it's for when guests are having a bad day, or have a sad looking kid or something, but really it could be for whatever reason. So there can be some extra inflation int he fastpass numbers beyond what the system is allowed to distribute per hour.

 

I'd much rather see them ditch the whole lot and double down on single-rider queues, which benefit the attractions by getting their turnstyle clicks/hour rates up anyway.

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The thing that gets me about Fastpass is that, based on the one time I went to Disneyland, the optimal strategy appears to be to head immediately for the back of the park, not stopping for anything, no matter how exciting it seems. No. Everyone else is going to peel off for their favourite delight, and it will take them at least an hour to get to where you are. By the time the queues start getting ridiculous, have lunch, then start at the front of the park, where everyone's already done. So you really only need Fastpasses for a two or three hour window anyway.

 

Maybe we got lucky, but we saw pretty much everything in a day.

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I think I'm fine with the cast members recycling the Fastpasses. While I think that, overall, Fastpasses are a net negative to an average park guests enjoyment, I think that the fact that cast members are allowed to do all kinds of targeted things to increase individual park enjoyment (including but not limited to giving away free, inexpensive shop items) is awesome both for the guest also for the cast member. I can't imagine that the "inflation" due to recycling has an enormous effect. I think that perhaps the most important thing has to be the arbitrary way in which cast members decide when to let in some number of standby line members. Standing to wait for the Space Mountain queue and just watching as the cast member stands there waiting on Fastpass holders is infuriating, especially on a summer day when the line seems to just drag on forever.

 

You also bring up single-rider queues, which is a fantastic idea, I agree, and I've thought quite a bit about their workings as well. While I'm not a huge fan of Cars as a film franchise, I think that Cars Land is the single best reason to visit California Adventure (the recent redo of Buena Vista Street and the Tower of Terror coming in at a close second and third), and the centerpiece is Radiator Springs Racers, a ride that manages to make Test Track into something thematic and interesting. The line for that ride can get to be two to three hours, which is ABSURD (but mostly based on the insane popularity of Cars as well as the fact that it's new), especially since the ride is what, two minutes, tops? The imagineers, though, built the ride to have two rows of three seats, for a weird 6 member car, which makes the single-rider queue completely necessary. It's the only way to enjoy the ride without giving up a significant chunk of your day to stand in a queue. The only drawback to a single-rider queue is that you don't get to enjoy the ride sitting in the same car as the rest of your party (although I've seen pairs from the same party get put into the same car, again, because it seats 6). This tends to benefit people who are coming in small, older groups (teenage and above), since the only people who are really trapped into riding attractions together are families with young kids, the target demographic for Radiator Springs Racers.

 

Which rides at either park are the most necessary to enjoy with your party? Tea Cups, certainly, as sitting across from some random people might be a little awkward, and most omnimover two to three seater rides, but overall, I agree with you. Putting in more single-rider queues for the "E-ticket" attractions with the large lines would really help with the flow of the park, as they actually serve the best purpose: ride fill efficiency. 

 

Merus, your point echoes what I was saying above about how Fastpass benefits people who get there early, and then know what they're doing such that they can get a Fastpass for a long-queue attraction (I generally recommend that my friends try for either Star Tours, Space Mountain, or Indiana Jones, although I think that the popularity of Star Tours has died down somewhat), and then get in line for something distant from the entrance (Matterhorn, Space Mountain, or Splash Mountain), and, later, come back around to the closer rides. This means that the best two things you can do to maximize your Disneyland enjoyment are 1) Careful Early Day Planning, and 2) Making Reasonable Ride Expectations.

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In your discussion about very low probability / non-reproducible events, I'm surprised that you didn't mention Guild Wars 2, which is built on a completely "living world" concept. Every so often they have special events, which only happen once, and which change the world globally and permanently. The key is that you have to build the entire system around that concept. One of the main reasons people get upset when they miss out on special custom content because the perception is that this sort of things happens only rarely, and so they're missing out on a very limited pool of chances. But if something new and different happens every day, you're no more upset about it than missing out on the daily special at a restaurant: it's too bad, because I would've liked to try that, but I know something else cool is right around the corner.

 

Also, it made me think of that Crusader Kings 2 Joan-of-Arc/Satan-Spawn story (might have been mentioned on the Crusader Kings 3MA). Even with online sharing and twitch streaming, etc, I think there's still an understanding that you're seeing something fairly rare and special when you encounter it in-game.

 

Also also, I was just listening to an older episode of Jon Shafer's podcast where he had a similar conversation about it re: the fountain of youth in the Civ 5 expansions. (maybe #38?)

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BRECKON.

Wrecking shit wherever he goes. I love this man.

 

The flipping of the scores might be because when sitting in the cart looking forward the player on the left is player 1, but they take the picture from the front of the cart looking back, thus flipping the people and their scores. If that's what it is, that's a pretty dumb UX mistake right there, ha.

 

Also, the way the letters in the Astro Blasters logo get progressively smaller made me read "Ass Blasters" initially, which would have been an entirely different ride.

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In your discussion about very low probability / non-reproducible events, I'm surprised that you didn't mention Guild Wars 2, which is built on a completely "living world" concept. Every so often they have special events, which only happen once, and which change the world globally and permanently. The key is that you have to build the entire system around that concept. One of the main reasons people get upset when they miss out on special custom content because the perception is that this sort of things happens only rarely, and so they're missing out on a very limited pool of chances. But if something new and different happens every day, you're no more upset about it than missing out on the daily special at a restaurant: it's too bad, because I would've liked to try that, but I know something else cool is right around the corner.

 

Also, it made me think of that Crusader Kings 2 Joan-of-Arc/Satan-Spawn story (might have been mentioned on the Crusader Kings 3MA). Even with online sharing and twitch streaming, etc, I think there's still an understanding that you're seeing something fairly rare and special when you encounter it in-game.

 

Also also, I was just listening to an older episode of Jon Shafer's podcast where he had a similar conversation about it re: the fountain of youth in the Civ 5 expansions. (maybe #38?)

Write in! I don't think any of us played Gw2.

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Speaking of Jon Shafer, his new game, At the Gates, is going to have some events that have like a 1 in 100,000 probability of popping up. He's gotten really into roguelikes and the unique experiences those games generate, so I think that's influenced his decision making into including events in his game that only a handful of people will ever see.

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his ties into the conversation from one of the team members from Far Cry 2 about how that game is a design failure in a way since it requires so much knowledge in advance about what makes the game good for someone to avoid having a negative experience.

 

Yeah I thought this was interesting if only because Far Cry 2 was the very first shooter I ever played.  Sort of my gateway drug to the genre..  I got FC2 as a freebie with a video card and I had no expectations whatsoever when I loaded it up.  A complete noob and I loved it; didn't think it was too hard or too easy just genuinely enjoyed the challenge and the experience of learning how to survive and progressing through the game's various systems. 

 

Funny thing is ---  now after many, many other games I'll still get it out and play it for a few hours  -- it's easy to jump into and the outcomes are always different and feel fresh.  You cannot say that about many games. 

 

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I think that perhaps the most important thing has to be the arbitrary way in which cast members decide when to let in some number of standby line members. Standing to wait for the Space Mountain queue and just watching as the cast member stands there waiting on Fastpass holders is infuriating, especially on a summer day when the line seems to just drag on forever.

 

It's actually not arbitrary. The guy at the merge is watching a monitor to see how long the queue is inside. Basically he's trying to keep it no longer than a certain point. He'll prefer fastpass people, but will fill that queue from the standby when there's room. That's why it seems arbitrary. It's also why enforcing end times is important. Before, it was a pretty sad time if you jumped in a standby queue after an evening event (say, fireworks or fantasmic) because all the people with fastpasses from earlier in the day would tend to flood in, meaning the standby queue could go for ages without ever moving.

 

Putting in more single-rider queues for the "E-ticket" attractions with the large lines would really help with the flow of the park, as they actually serve the best purpose: ride fill efficiency. 

 

Hourly throughput is also one of the absolute top metrics that attractions management cares about. They live for turnstyle clicks. But yeah, single-rider only makes sense for attractions with discrete seats, like Radiator Springs Racers or Indiana Jones (which does have it, even though it's heavily un-advertised). California Screamin' is another, since it has rows of two, so any group with an odd number of people leaves a hole.

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You mentioned that for long term players of EVE the meta game is the big draw. This seems to have reached a fairly extreme state. There was a AMA on Reddit recently from a person who ran a major EVE alliance. I haven't read the whole thing, but even skimming it is fascinating. Relevant to the point, someone at this level of the game rarely has time or need to actually log in and fly a spaceship around. Managing their executive team (they actually have an HR department!), using managing in the business sense, takes up all of their time.

 

The other thing I liked: the most dangerous and stressful job in the galaxy is courier/trucker. Most of them burn out pretty fast.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1weo82/i_used_to_run_the_largest_alliance_in_eve_online/

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I think that Cars Land is the single best reason to visit California Adventure

At the risk of getting even further off topic, I have some steam to let off. I find the existence of cars land to be mildly infuriating on a fundamental level. Like, ok, I get that basing an entire theme park around the idea of "California" when the park itself is already in California is perhaps kind of a dumb idea, but they made that bed 13 years ago so they might as well sleep in it. But no, they decided to add a land based on freaking "Cars", despite the fact that it is neither an especially interesting world nor even a very good pair of movies. And then there's the fact that "Cars" does not take place in California. It is in fact central to the identity of the move that it takes place in the midwest Arizona and not California goddammit. (thanks RubixsQube for correcting me on that, my point still stands though)

 

Anyway, it seems like the problem with the fastpass system is more to do with the fact that they allow people to use them after the time window is up. If they didn't, there would always be a known maximum number of extra people in line in any given time frame. My only anecdotal evidence to support this is that I remember going as a kid and on multiple trips, waiting in line for splash mountain for ~2 hours before fastpass was added. I've been back since then at similar times of year and never seen the line that long so...I guess I don't know if that actually means anything.

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Actually the best reason to visit California Adventure is the free tortilla factory. Those things are amazing.

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We don't really know where listeners came from but last week had an 18-20% bump.

 

Idle Thumbs was mentioned on the final episode of Weekend Confirmed, but I don't know if that would explain the whole bump.

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Jake, have you actually gotten further in Link Between Worlds? Has your opinion changed on it? That conversation got insanely sidetracked by the whole Spelunky->Majoras Mask->Graceland tangent and I was curious.

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I would argue that there was zero ambiguity about what Banner Saga was, but I'd be disproven by the fact that Chris somehow managed to not know about what the game was, so eh. I suspect DA:O worked for them not because it does anything inherently better than Banner Saga, but instead because of the time period it came out in. It had a pause-n-play mechanic that hadn't been seen in a while, and the gameplay was whatever the user chose it to be - for instance, I play it as a pseudo turn-based strategy game in which I pause every 5 seconds or so to issue another order. The main chunk of the lore is also hidden away in the Codex. But around that time, there were very few turn or pause-n-play based strategy games, and DA:O filled that niche for some people. 4-6 years later and there have been tons and tons of great tactical strategy games, and ones that aren't focused in genre fiction (something I didn't quite realize until now was a thing the Thumbs seem to rather dislike - it explains a lot about what they tend to like, though, and why I so often disagree with them). Had DA:O released this year, I suspect it would be met with similar feelings from the Thumbs to what Banner Saga raised.

 

 

I think you are overestimating how informed people are before they get into a game.  Often you just hear that a game is top notch, you check the genre, maybe look at a few screenshots or a trailer, and then you buy it.  I haven't played it yet, but the problem with Banner Saga sounds pretty simple.  Its a tactical RPG that happens to have tons of dialog between battles, and there is no way to skip the dialog because the choices in the dialog have a mechanical impact.  So it is really two games in one, trying to be well integrated but not allowing you to skip either part.

 

In Bioware RPGs, while there are some required cutscenes and dialog, you can skip a lot of it.  You can default to the first dialog option and usually be fine.  You can certain skip the whole fireside camp chat aspect of Dragon Age: O.  Personally I found some of my conversations at camp to be some of the most memorable experiences in the whole game, but they are entirely optional.  So is the codex or whatever they call the "lore catalog". Finally, in a first-person RPG like Dragon Age or Skyrim, not only do you expect tons of lore, but you are immersed in a rich 3D world where your character is more fully realized in the game world.  I think the fiction-heavy approach works more easily in that setting.

 

I'm not a big tactical RPG player, or handheld gamer (where most of those seem to get released), but I've never been able to really get into the story in those types of experiences.  Its usually static talking heads spouting predictable lines of text, no talented actors to sell it, no inspired writing, rarely any cutscenes to create drama.  I think if the fiction presentation is good enough, even people who aren't fans of genre fiction will probably enjoy it.  Look at the popularity of LoTR, Harry Potter, and Hunger Games, only a fraction of those audiences are real fantasy geeks.  But those movies are expensive productions, Bioware style RPGs cost $100s of millions. If you look at the successful low-budget titles, they tend not to rely on those kinds of cinematic narrative presentation elements, because I don't think there is any way of getting around the price tag.  Solid mechanics (the tactical RPG part) is much cheaper to do well.  People don't generally like to just read text in a video game, because if they wanted to read text they would just go read a book.  I'm sure they tried very hard to connect the dialog to the combat, but those connections are usually just illusions or window dressing, if you aren't into the narrative they won't work.

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I wouldn't claim Rhythm of the Saints is a better album than Graceland, because that's a stupid conversation.  But I sure enjoy Rhythm of the Saints a whole lot more.

 

Also, I loved both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, but my opinion of Majora's Mask is deeply suspect because I played it with an emulator that allowed save-states (and made frequent use of FAQs), all of which probably cut in half the frustrations of repetition.

 

But anyone who thinks the whole thing with the moon in Majora's Mask (including the hilariously menacing face, which I totally use in my Minecraft texture pack) isn't awesome is just straight-up wrong.

 

MajorasMoon.jpg

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